HIPROMINE MISSION

Philosopher’s stone is a legendary alchemical substance capable of turning metals into gold. Turning the worthless into the priceless. We hold a strong belief that insects will become the “philosopher’s stone” of the 21st century – a medium that will turn the waste into life-giving proteins, oils and nutraceuticals – the most sought substances in times of the global food deficiency. Over millions of years thousand of insects species have evolved to serve the sole purpose – process organic matter and assimilate biogenic elements. We aim to harness this power and use it to produce highest quality nutrients to meet the growing demands of feed and food industries. Carefully selected species of insects will be used in a process of “bio-recycling” to utilize the waste and agri-food industry by-products, and convert them into HiProMine products.

OUR PRODUCTS

The possibilities are endless. Insects seem to be unlimited source of bio-active compounds. On-going research helps us to identify and investigate the new substances that might find the wide use in medicine, pharma&beauty and chemical industry. But for now we start with a very basic set of products.

OUR STORY

01.2015 Startup Hub Poland seed fund and Giza Polish Ventures VC fund invested in the project on pre-seed stage of development03.2015 with a help of the funds from NCBR (The National Centre for Research and Development) HiProMine was brought to life. Since than company focuses on research on insects as a feed component and development of innovative solutions for industrial breeding and rearing of insects. In August 2015 HiProMine R&D Centre was opened in Robakowo.11.2015 Company received funds from National Centre of Research and Development from POIR 1.1.1. program

05.2016 HiProMine won Master of Innovation competition organized by BioForum05.2016 HiProMine won Initiator of Innovation competition organized by Newsweek Poland06.2016 HiProMine took first place in Poland international UBER Pitch competition

OUR TEAM

Damian Józefiak

Chief Executive Officer, co-founder

Ph.D. hab. Associated Professor at Poznan University of Life Sciences. Specialist in the field of animal nutrition, feed technology and digestive tract microbiology, Head of the Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Management Poznan University of Life Sciences.

Jakub Urbański

Chief Intellectual Property Officer, co-founder

Ph.D., molecular biologist, microbiologist, expert in insect breeding and entomology, founder of the first professional insect farm in Poland „Fabryka Owadów”. Member of The Explorers Club.

Noemi Malska

Chief Operational Officer

Noemi is a global connector & business developer with strategic mindset. She has possessed ability to control complex systems. Noemi graduated from Wroclaw University of Technology & European Academy of Diplomacy. She gathered experience in international business during her contract in The Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce (Tel-Aviv) and as an investment analyst in seed fund StartVenture@Poland. In business she follows ethics, clear rules of the game and win-win strategy.

Marek Borzestowski

Chairman of the Supervisory Board

General partner at Polish-Israeli VC Giza Polish Ventures. Founder of the first Polish portal „Wirtualna Polska”. Conducted Ph.D. studies at the Centre for Nuclear Research in Karlsruhe.

Jan Mazurkiewicz

Member of the Supervisory Board, co-founder

Ph.D. hab. Associated Professor at Poznan University of Life Sciences. Specialist in fish nutrition, feed and aquaculture technologies, Director of Experimental Plant for Feed Production Technologies and Aquaculture in Muchocin.

Piotr Pietrzak

Member of the Supervisory Board

Management board member at StartVenture@Poland, investment professional with proven experience in VC, PE and M&A environment. Executive officer at seed capital funds, investing in Polish and international start-ups. Warsaw School of Economics graduate (master degree) and Universiteit van Tilburg (international finance program).

ADVISORY BOARD

Zygmunt Grajkowski

Managing Partner at Giza Polish Ventures, with 25 years of experience in corporate finance and new technology investments. From 1996 to 2002, Partner at Enterprise Investors – a company managing the largest VC/PE funds in the CEE region.

Zygmunt was previously a director of the M&A department at Price Waterhouse Poland. Since 2003, as part of his company Value Based Management Consulting, he has completed more than 70 capital and strategic consulting transactions in Poland and Central Europe.

Zygmunt graduated from the Faculty of Electronics at Wrocław University of Technology and holds a postgraduate diploma in Capital Investments and Financial Management from the Wrocław University of Economics.

Ricarda M. Engberg

Ricarda M. Engberg is trained as a veterinarian from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany and holds presently a position as associated professor at the Department of Animal Science, Aarhus University. Denmark. Her research interest is poultry nutrition with focus on the microbial development and fermentation in the digestive tract as influenced by dietary factors. The aim of her work is to find feeding strategies that improve animal growth and gastrointestinal health without the use of antibiotic growth promoters.

Birger Svihus

Birger Svihus finished his PhD on soluble fibre in broiler diet at the Agricultural University of Norway University of Life Sciences in 1997. Since 2005, he has been a professor at Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her has published more than 60 scientific papers on nutrition related to chicken, salmon and humans, and has in addition written several books on nutrition. He is currently President of the European Federation of World’s Poultry Science Association.

Piotr Tryjanowski

Piotr Tryjanowski finished his PhD on interaction between wild bird populations and agriculture intensification at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland in 1998. Since this time he had some post-docs in Czech Republic, Israel and the UK, where he has deleloped ideas on birds, mammals and some insects.

He has published over 200 scientific publications and few books, mainly on birds, but in more general context covered impact of climate change, landscape homogenity and urbanisation.

He is currently the Director of Institute of Zoology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences, Poznań University of Life Sciences.

Romuald Zabielski

Romuald is corresponding member of Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS). Professor at the Department of Physiological Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Warsaw University of Life Sciences. His main areas of research interest include: physiology of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in young mammals, in particular pigs and calves: neurohormonal regulation of the exocrine pancreas, development of the GI tract in particular pancreas and small intestine – role of endogenous gut regulatory peptides, milk hormones, growth factors, feed additives and other components; early- and adult-life consequences of intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) syndrome.

Murtala Umar Faruk

Murtala finished his his PhD on Poultry Nutrition at Université François Rabelais de Tours. Currently he works as a Senior Scientist, Poultry Nutrition and Head of The Laboratory of Nutrition in DSM Nutritional Products located in Village-Neuf, France. His main areas of research include: energy and protein nutrition in poultry, enzymes application in poultry nutrition and alternative feed ingredients in animal nutrition and particular novel proteins (insects), use, limitation and nutritional mitigation strategies.

Thomas Haertlé

Professor Thomas Haertlé, Research Director at Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Nantes, where he works since 1988. Head of the research group specialising in studies of protein and peptide chemistry, interactions, study of biological activities of peptides and proteins. Expert in field of protein and protease engineering, conducting research on proteases from extremophiles and their use in neutralisation of infectious prions, and probiotic Lactic Acid Bacteria and their proteolytic activities and antibiotic metabolites protecting food products and plants against microbial spoilage and infections and decreasing allergenic immuno- reactivities of foods. Author of over 300 publications and 5 patents.

Anna Misiołek

Anna Misiołek, MBA at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has graduated with thesis “A Financial Analysis of Adopting US Regional Development Strategies in Poland”. From 1995-1999 she was a member of the working group ProEuropa Viadrina Euroregion. She served as Chief of the Division in local government administration. Since 1999 she worked as a manager of economic development programs in Chemonics International in Washington. Since 2003 involved in contract for the Representation of European Commission Representation in Poland.

Since 2005 president of the ABBEYS, consulting company specialised in EU funds. Under her supervision ABBEYS clients acquired 7.3% of all funds granted to Polish entrepreneurs under OP IE.

OUR PARTNERS

CONTACT US

HIPROMINE

HiProMine S.A. 8 Poznanska Str. 62-023 Robakowo POLAND VAT-ID: PL1132889689 mail: info@hipromine.com Our Research&Development Center is located in Robakowo near Poznań, just a 5 km off the A2 motorway. Robakowo literally means “place of the bugs” – the village itself dates back to the early 13th century and the exact origins of name are unknown. Nevertheless, now, after almost 800 years the bugs are back.